From the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Nov. 27:
Italian authorities have seized €1.5 billion ($US 1.7 billion) in assets
from the heirs of a late businessman who had allegedly built his wealth
on funds provided by Sicily’s notorious Cosa Nostra organized crime
group, the country’s Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate (DIA) announced Saturday.
The properties included over 200 buildings, a yacht, three
resorts, 25 companies, and a golf club in Rome, all linked to the
tourism and electronics empire of Carmelo Patti.
Investigators say Patti, who died in January 2016, grew his
businesses with money provided by a Sicilian mafia family headed by
Matteo Messina Denaro, who has been on the run
since 1998 and has been given a life sentence in absentia for murder....
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